that God knows how to deliver from troubles by troubles; he knows how
goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge; and thy God shall be my God; and nothing shall part between thee and my soul, between thy ways and my heart;' therefore let that bespeak you to hold on in ways of well-doing, notwithstanding all afflictions and discouragements you meet withal.
5. And then again, in the next place, Let upright hearts consider this, that God knows how to deliver from troubles by troubles; he knows how to deliver from afflictions by afflictions; and God will by lesser afflictions that befall his people deliver them from greater afflictions; and by those troubles that befall them, he will deliver them from greater troubles. That saying shall be found true, Periissem nisi periissem, I had perished, if I had not perished; I had been undone, if I had not been undone; I had. been ruined, if I had not been ruined; I had been broken in pieces, if I had not been broken in pieces. I remember a saying of a philosopher, [Anaxagoras,] who seeing great possessions which he had lost, speaks thus, Non essem ego salvus nisi istœ periissent, Had not those things perished, saith he, I could not have been safe. God will so order all the afflictions and troubles that befall you in the ways of the Lord, that your soul shall say, Oh, had I not met with this affliction, I had been afflicted with a witness indeed; had I not been undone, I had been undone; had not these troubles and sorrows and discouragements befallen me, it had been worse with me. God will deliver his people, mark it, from spiritual afflictions and spiritual judgments, by the temporal afflictions and troubles that befall them. By those afflictions that you meet with in the ways of well-doing, God will deliver you from that security, pride, formality, dead-heartedness, lukewarmness, and censoriousness that otherwise might fall upon you.
I remember a story of a godly man, that as he was going to take shipping for France, he broke his leg; and it pleased providence so to order it, that the ship that he should have gone in at that very time was cast away, and not a man saved; so by breaking a bone his life was saved. Thus is the dealing of